Leadership resilience in a changing environment

The time I have spent with the Future Leaders Programme over the past year has been enriching and rewarding. The people I have met have been from different backgrounds and parts of the UK; each one bringing with them their own unique experience and perspective. I especially enjoyed visiting the Appleby Blue Almshouse in London, which showed to me what affordable housing for older people can look like. 

My takeaways from the sessions have been to embrace opportunities that come along and not let fear of failure or “imposter” syndrome get in the way. Many of the speakers in the programme shared how they faced hurdles in their career and discussed how they overcame these. It’s easy to feel defeated by such hurdles or failures; but they often will teach you the biggest lessons. I appreciate the importance of resilience in your career. Situations will come along that you will need to face, take a deep breath, deal with to the best of your ability; knowing that sometime soon the storm will be over.

“If you try, you might fail. But if you don’t try, you’ll never succeed.” – Thomas A Knight

The fear of making mistakes can often cause indecision, thinking there must be more research and more information I could have that I can make a better decision. Often decisions are based on the information you have at present, and you must make the best decisions based on the information you have. Acknowledging with hindsight mistakes could have been made, often learning most from them. I was particularly inspired by Kay Allen's experiences about an incident in her career that was widely publicised and how she did not let that stop her having a successful career; in fact, it drove her to advocate for disability rights.

Resilience is required to overcome any hurdles. I know I have had to develop resilience and realised you need to weather the storms and celebrate the successes. Forbes magazine's article on resilience gives four strategies for cultivating resilience, with number one being an effective network. From my own experience and from the experiences I have heard through Housing LIN events, these relationships you build can buffer you during adverse career events. What struck me with those I have looked up to as great leaders over the past seven years of my career is that they saw the best in me even when I doubted myself. I am glad to have embraced the opportunities I did and not let fear of mistakes get in the way.

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Emily's blog is one of 9 from the 3rd cohort of the Housing LIN’s Future Leaders Programme that we are publishing in the lead up to our virtual Summit – A Festival of Ideas and the virtual session on Tuesday, 29 February 2024 (10:30am - 12:00 pm). Register now for Cultivating Leadership: Inspiring the Next Wave of Talent and Future Leaders.

Find out more about Housing LIN’s Future Leaders Programme and read the other blogs once published.